I’m glad to be back in my cube. It’s a padded cage in the middle of this primate habitat of an office, but for now, I feel safe. I’m just going to focus on work for the rest of the day. Work always clears my head once I get rolling with whatever I’m doing.
As I’m reviewing the notes I took over coffee, I am powerless to control my train of thought. It breaks through all the barriers and takes a nosedive off of Jack Mountain.
Thinking about Jack Cooper is just plain crazy.
Even if he does have eyes that are as blue as the Austin skies and he also flashes that polished smile.
Seriously, Kate…back to work. Nothing else. No daydreams of any kind. Not about Tahiti or zoo consultants.
I open up my Internet browser and type in the Web address of my favorite online station so I can stream the audio over my computer and listen as I begin to re-focus my day.
Work. Promotions. Career building. That’s my focus right now. I give myself a pep talk. There’s no room for Jack Cooper. I get focused and click on the orange icon on my desktop so I can open my e-mail program. I have a few messages, but I’ll check those after I finish sending the group an e-mail about Saturday.
To: [email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
CC:[email protected]
From:[email protected]
Subject:Brown & Co./Lone Star Weekend Team-Building Event
Attachment:Directions to Jack’s Ranch.ppt
* * *
CoT Zoo Team:
In an effort to help us all become a more cohesive team as we focus on the upcoming CoT Zoo project, Jack Cooper has graciously invited us all to his ranch outside Wimberley for a holiday-weekend Saturday of team-building and fun.
* * *
Traditional Memorial Day weekend fare—burgers and hotdogs—will be served, but feel free to bring anything else you’d like to eat. Also, the Blanco River runs right through the property, and Jack says there are inner tubes and a canoe for those who want to play in the river.
* * *
A map and directions are attached. Please plan on being there between noon and 1:00 p.m. It will take about an hour from downtown Austin to get there. The sleeping porch has several cots, so if you want to head home Sunday morning, instead, just let Jack know.
* * *
We look forward to seeing the whole team there and to generating some great ideas…and fun! If you have any ideas or suggestions, please e-mail either Jack or myself, as we are your designated “social directors” for this event.
* * *
See you Saturday-
Kate
* * *
Kate Cormick
Assistant Account Executive
Brown & Company Communications
Click.
I hit the send button, and away the note goes flying into the far-flung reaches known as cyberspace.
With the e-mail finished, I browse through the unopened items in my inbox. It’s been a slow morning—I guess this is largely due to the absence of the Backdrafter from the office today—and so it looks like I didn’t miss much by joining my—ahem—client for that cup of coffee.
Let’s see, what’s in the box?
Two office announcements—Wanda’s back from maternity leave and June dues for the office Water Club are due to Wally.
A note from the marketing director of the Central Texas Regional Medical Center—we’re still on track to announce the new cardiac catheterization lab next week.
One short reminder from my favorite reporter on Channel Five—she’s going to run the story featuring the new PDA from my start-up high-tech client, TechLink, to wrap up May sweeps tomorrow.
I have two personal e-mails, also. One is from Kathy, my former co-worker at the paper. The other is from my friend Josh, confirming I’m singing in church Sunday.
And then there’s a note from [email protected].
Great. At the coffee shop, I figured he really didn’t have my new e-mail address, since I switched jobs after the breakup. I suppose Mimi gave it to him, though just why, I don’t know. After we ended the relationship, I took his information out of my computer, and kind of hoped he’d done the same.
To: [email protected]
From:[email protected]
Subject:Speaker Watkins and the Zoo
Attachment:MarkMcCoy.vcf
* * *
Kate-
Can you forward my contact info in the attached v-card to Jack Cooper? I’d like to get Speaker Watkins on the Zoo’s opening agenda.
* * *
Mark
* * *
PS-Good to see you today. I’d like to meet you after work tomorrow. I need to clear up some things. Do you still run around the lake after work? I’ll be at the bridge at 6:30. –M.
I wipe clammy fingertips on the front of my skirt for the second time today. Overcome by a robot-like trance, I delete the postscript at the bottom and forward the rest of the e-mail, including the attachment, to Jack.
I don’t know how to respond to Mark. Since Mimi dropped the engagement bomb, I have wondered how he found someone and why he decided to spend the rest of his life with them only six months after ending an almost decade-long relationship with me. And now he wants to “clear up some things?” I don’t know what to do, and just trying to think about it makes me uneasy. I decide to flag the e-mail as “unread” so that I’ll remember to respond to it later, then continue what I was doing before I read Mark’s note.
After I sort and respond to the first few e-mails, I check voicemail on my phone. I have one new message.
“Hi, Kate. It’s Mom. Just wanted to let you know the plans for dinner tomorrow night have changed a little bit. Al and Susan invited your dad and me over for dinner, and it’s the only time we can go before Dad and I leave for the cruise. But Susan said she absolutely wants you to come, too. So, we’ll see you at Al and Susan’s house at seven o'clock tomorrow night, instead of ours, okay? Hope you’re having a good day, hon. Call me back when you can.”
I pressed the * key twice to delete the message and made a mental note to call my mom back from my cell phone on my way home.
I’m also thankful that when I reply to Mark, I can honestly tell him that I already have plans for tomorrow night.
In fact, I have great plans for tomorrow night. I have great parents. I have a great senior boss in Al, and he has a great wife, Susan, who always bought me the best birthday presents when I was a kid.
One more email pings in my mailbox, and I decide to quickly check it before moving on to other things I need to get settled for some of my clients before today is over.
To: [email protected]
From:[email protected]
CC:[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
Subject:RE: Brown & Co./Lone Star Weekend TeaBuilding Event
* * *
Also, the Blanco River runs right through the property, and Jack says there are inner tubes and a canoe for those who want to play in the river.
* * *
Can I wear my bikini, or should I keep it “business-casual” with a one-piece? Please advise. I will have to purchase a one-piece bathing suit if this is the case.
* * *
Laura Lynn
5
“The rebellious and quarrelsome nature of adolescent chimpanzees as they work to become members of the adult hierarchy closely parallels the behavior of human teens. Adults move through their social circles with friends and family. Relationships can last a lifetime. Chimpanzees gain and lose political power often until they reach old age. At that point, they are able to relax and become observers.”
--From the
Chimp Haven website, chimphaven.org
* * *
Between the TechLink project, making sure everything was on track for the weekend at the ranch, and trying my level best to dodge Cindy’s e-mails (she’s officially been out both yesterday and today with laryngitis, which somehow makes her speeches on e-mail even more cutting than usual), I am leaving work a little later than I originally planned at the start of my weekend. But it’s Friday afternoon—the Friday of a holiday weekend, no less—and that makes everything right with the world.
Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t be too worked up about being a little late to a dinner with Mom and Dad and Al and Susan, but since I now technically get a paycheck from Al, I wonder what the etiquette implications of tardiness would be. Is this still merely dinner with parents and family friends, or is it now dinner with the boss?
For my sanity, I sure hope it’s the former.
I’m headed out to Lakeway, a suburb of Austin. In traffic, the drive is about forty minutes from my office. Since my mom said to be there at seven, and it’s now 6:45, this means only one thing.
I’m going to be late.
As usual.
I wonder if there is such a thing as a Mid-Year’s Resolution. If so, I should really resolve to work on this issue for the second half of the year…and probably forever. I think about how the Bible says that God created the heavens and the earth in six days. I just want to get to dinner on time. Suddenly, I feel like I need to buy a new planner.
Of course, it will never get opened and will remain, a silent, spiral-bound testament to my complete and utter lack of ability to be anywhere on time, no matter how hard I say I’m going to try.
Traffic is moving very well tonight, and since my speedometer has been able to remain above sixty miles per hour the whole way, I think I’ll be at Al and Susan’s ahead of my revised schedule. (Read: not as late as I could have been, but still late.)
Al and Susan live just around the corner from my parents. I like the drive out to their part of town a great deal. It’s peaceful. It sits right on the shores of Lake Travis, the largest man-made lake in the state. Lakeway is not so much a community as it is a resort where people live. There are several golf clubs dotting the hills and many marinas that pop up all around the lakeshore. Restaurants have decks to take in the view, and ladies who lunch live in million-dollar homes that snuggle between private pools and community tennis courts.
When I describe it that way, it sounds a little pretentious, but I promise it’s not. It’s got a lot of positive aspects to it, and more than that, it’s home.
I pull up in Al and Susan’s driveway and check the clock on my dashboard. Miraculously, I’m only 14 minutes behind schedule.
Woo-hoo. I think that’s a good sign for dinner and the rest of my holiday weekend. It seems a little weird that I’m celebrating that I’m not as late as I could be. But after this crazy week, I’m going to take the victories where I find them.
Al walks out as if he had been standing like a puppy at the window watching. He greets me before I’ve even locked the door to my car. “Katie!”
In fact, his voice seems so booming, he probably greeted all of greater Lakeway with just those two syllables.
“Hi, Al!” I wave as I walk up the driveway. He’s clearly in a good mood tonight—as usual—and it reminds me that I need to be, too. After all, I can’t really think of a good reason not to be. My crabbiness in the past hours has revolved around Cindy, traffic, and being late. Since Cindy’s not here, traffic was pretty much a breeze, and I wasn’t really late (by the standards of Kate Time), then I need to turn my grumpy frown upside down. I laugh a little—that sounds like something a character off Sesame Street would say.
“Hey, Katie! You look too serious. It’s the weekend. You need to turn that frown upside down.”
The Sesame Street force is strong. I’m now wondering if we’ll be having juice boxes and singing the alphabet song at dinner.
“We’re glad you were able to make it, Katie. Susan specifically told your mom she wanted you to come.” He opens the door like a gentleman, which is sadly so lacking these days—except that I remember Jack Cooper opening the doors of the conference room at Lone Star and then at the coffee shop for me. “Of course, Susie’s not as lucky as I am, since I get to see you every day at work now.”
The air in Al and Susan’s house is fragrant with the smell of cinnamon and crust baking in the oven. “Mmmm. Smells like apple pie.”
“It is.” Susan gives me a big hug the moment she steps into the hall. “I made it just for you, Katie Bug.”
“Thanks, Susan.” She took godparent privileges and nicknamed me “Katie Bug” a loooooooong time ago, and while I think I’m long past the “Katie Bug” stage of my life, I don’t have the heart to tell Susan that.
One thing I will never outgrow is Susan’s famous apple pie, topped with some creamy vanilla ice cream. I don’t know what she puts in that pie, but I love it. Susan knows this, and—bless her—makes it every time she knows I am coming over.
“Nothin’ is too much trouble for my favorite goddaughter.” She winks at me.
My dad and I have the same joke about my being his favorite daughter. I’m his only daughter, just as I’m Susan’s only goddaughter, so by the laws of the superlative universe, I should automatically be the favorite, too.
“I won’t tell the others,” I whisper.
“Come on inside, Katie Bug. Your mom and dad are outside on the porch with another friend of ours. Al was out there too, but he thought he heard you pull up—and you know Al, he had to rush outside to see his girl.”
“Indeed.” Al laughed. “How’s that zoo campaign coming, Katie? I don’t really want to talk shop tonight, but I do want to know if everything is going okay for you. I realize it’s a big project with some tight deadlines.”
“Things are going, okay, Al. With Cindy out because of laryngitis, I had the opportunity to give our team presentation to Jack Cooper over at Lone Star. And we’re all getting together—the folks from Brown & Company and Lone Star Consulting—for a little team building and brainstorming tomorrow at Jack’s ranch in Wimberley.”
“Good, good. I’m sure you did well with the presentation. Jack Cooper’s a good kid, just like you, Katie. I taught him in Sunday school when he was a boy. His dad still sits near us, just about every Sunday.”
“I didn’t know Jack went to First Central, too.” I’m kind of surprised. My family didn’t start attending there until I was a freshman in high school, and Jack’s older than me, but still, as involved as the Cormick family is at the church, I just kind of figured I would have known that he grew up there.
“Oh, he doesn’t anymore, Katie.” Al’s head shook back and forth in a measured fashion. “I don’t think I’ve seen Jack at church since his senior year of high school. His father is still there, and I see his sister and her family there too, but Jack doesn’t come anymore. Every week I see John Cooper there. And right beside him is his son’s empty seat that’s been saved for the last 15 or so years.”
It feels as though Al can’t—or won’t—say more about the subject. Jack was probably some wild child who stopped going to church once he set foot on the UT campus. He doesn’t seem at all wild, though, under those lightweight wool suits and silk power ties. And he works with his dad now, so whatever the circumstances, the prodigal must have come home.
Al breaks my suddenly curious train of thought. “Come on, Katie Bug, let’s get you out to the porch to see your folks.” He chuckles. “Can’t be calling you ‘Katie Bug’ in the office, but when it comes to you, I don’t like being all boss-like. I like getting to tease you better. Been doin’ it so long, it’s just become a habit. And you know what they say about old habits…”
He claps a hand—more paw than hand, actually—on my shoulder and steers me toward the porch. “No, Al, what?”
“They die hard. Or at least that’s the saying down in these parts.”
“Al, I didn�
�t hear you say the ‘D’-word, did I?” Susan pipes up and joins our conversation, even though she’s back in the kitchen, putting the finishing touches on dinner.
“No, Susie, nothing like that. Just tellin’ our Katie a story.” He looked down at me and lowered the volume of his voice, something very unusual for booming, jovial Al. “Ever since I had that heart attack six months ago and that emergency triple bypass, well, Susie’s outlawed the word ‘die’ or any form of it.”
I knew it had been bad when Al had his heart attack, but a triple bypass? Wow. I didn’t remember that part. Of course, six months ago, I was so consumed with the breakup from Mark that I wouldn’t have remembered if I’d had a triple bypass myself.
This is what happens when you focus on yourself and your problems. You lose track of the world around you. It was a good lesson to keep in mind.
“Susie got scared that she was going to lose me—even though I tell her that I’m like Superman, and nothing short of Kryptonite. Anyway, by the end of the week in the hospital, Susie said she was so sick of hearing doctors talk about death that she was outlawing anymore talk about it.”
We walked past a plant in the corner that was droopy from needing water. “If that plant gets any worse, Katie, we’ll have to say it ‘croaked’ or something because we can’t say that it…well, you know…” He mouthed the letters d-i-e-d at me, then chuckled again. “I think it’s superstitious stuff and nonsense and that the good Lord is going to take me home whenever He’s good and ready. But Susie’s been my girl for thirty-five years now, and if the shoe was on the other foot, I wouldn’t be able to talk about her being gone, either.”
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